“A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer and more copious one's vocabulary and the greater one's awareness of fine distinctions and subtle nuances of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to be one's thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the words for them grow together. If you do not know the words, you can hardly know the thing.”
― Henry Hazlitt, Thinking as a Science
A tenacious vocabulary presents you with the ability ascend to greater heights in your daily life. Settling for a lower level of education will prevent you from meeting your aspirations. Enhancing your knowledge and the eloquence of your speech to a level beyond that of the average person will help you emerge as a leader in your community whom your colleagues will respect. Having an advanced vocabulary does not solely involve memorizing a dictionary definition verbatim. You must expand your thinking and question the information given to you as opposed to simply accepting it. You must inquire about new information by questioning and delving beneath the surface of the subject at hand. The verb to "inquire" is rooted from the noun "inquiry" which is defined as a seeking for information and knowledge. The purpose of my Inquiry course at Southern is just that. Other college courses provide us with information to absorb, but inquiry means to question. In this class we are taught to make the most of our college education by taking in the necessary information and continuing further instead of just accepting the bare minimum. To inquire is to stride beyond what is expected of us and to strive for further enlightenment. It is to continue searching for ways to improve upon aspects of your life including an idea you are pondering, a project you are involved in, or even upon yourself.
Sonia Sotomayor, the Author of the best-selling autobiographical memoir My Beloved World, inquired throughout her life at every opportunity that arose in her path. She was dealt a difficult hand as a child but she persevered due to her hunger for knowledge and success.
A word derived from my Geography and Conflict course that also directly relates to Miss Sotomayor is "integration". In the 1800s, millions of despondent foreigners were granted a new hope as they crossed colossal oceans to the promise land of the United States of America. Immigrants migrated from countries located all over the vast globe toiling for a better life for their families. Most races of people, including Latinos like the Sotomayor family, were degraded. Unfortunately this discrimination lasted well into the twentieth century and some still exists presently. These minorities had to integrate themselves into the American society. Integrating is defined as combining various different parts to create a whole. If those immigrants had never inquired about their surroundings and persevered to stand out against the predisposed American culture, it would have been impossible for them to integrate and mold this country into what it is today.
Sonia Sotomayor, the Author of the best-selling autobiographical memoir My Beloved World, inquired throughout her life at every opportunity that arose in her path. She was dealt a difficult hand as a child but she persevered due to her hunger for knowledge and success.
“Many of the gaps in my knowledge and understanding were simply limits of class and cultural background, not lack of aptitude or application as I feared" (Sotomayor, 135).Judge Sotomayor learned as she developed that you never have to settle, and that education is your greatest weapon against adversity. "Perseverance" is another word that comes to mind when people like Sonia are involved. To persevere is to continue on a course of action despite the obstacles in your path. It is a word most of us have heard before, but it is a word of utmost importance that can change someone's life drastically. Sonia grew up in a lower class household with an alcoholic father as she struggled with diabetes. However, she never abandoned sight of her extravagant dreams. Had she not persevered past the stereotypes of being a poor, Latin-American female with a disease, she never would have achieved her aspirations of being a Supreme Court judge.
A word derived from my Geography and Conflict course that also directly relates to Miss Sotomayor is "integration". In the 1800s, millions of despondent foreigners were granted a new hope as they crossed colossal oceans to the promise land of the United States of America. Immigrants migrated from countries located all over the vast globe toiling for a better life for their families. Most races of people, including Latinos like the Sotomayor family, were degraded. Unfortunately this discrimination lasted well into the twentieth century and some still exists presently. These minorities had to integrate themselves into the American society. Integrating is defined as combining various different parts to create a whole. If those immigrants had never inquired about their surroundings and persevered to stand out against the predisposed American culture, it would have been impossible for them to integrate and mold this country into what it is today.
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